The AI-Fluent Lawyer: How Generative AI Is Redefining Legal Training and Talent Development

As Generative AI (Gen AI) reshapes the profession, legal expertise alone is no longer enough. Tomorrow’s most valuable lawyers will blend legal knowledge with AI fluency - mastering the skills needed to work effectively with intelligent tools.

1. From Legal Expertise to AI Fluency

Across Europe, law firms are discovering that mastering AI means much more than learning new software. It requires a new mindset.
At RocaJunyent, Partner Beatriz Rodríguez Gómez explains:

“We have to get people used to being critical with the input and output of these tools.” ¹:

Critical thinking now sits alongside legal reasoning as a core professional skill. Vittorio Pomarici of BonelliErede reminds us:

“There is currently a gap between expectations – everybody thinks that AI can be a magic trick to do the work with no effort, but this is not true because the tools have not yet reached the level of reliability and quality of the results.” ¹

2. Learning the New Language of Law

The good news? Lawyers already possess the linguistic precision Gen AI requires.
In the Legal Tech Trends 2025 report, David Hobbie, Director of Knowledge & Innovation at Goodwin, explains that as Gen AI becomes more integrated into legal work, lawyers are developing new skills such as prompt engineering - the ability to frame questions and instructions clearly and logically.
These skills draw on the same reasoning, analytical and language abilities that lawyers already use every day, rather than on any technical coding expertise.
Across Europe, firms are introducing prompt libraries, simulation exercises and guided feedback sessions to help trainees turn legal logic into AI-ready prompts.

3. Attracting and Retaining Digital-Native Talent

The digital expectations of Gen Z are rewriting talent strategies.

“The trainees now and tomorrow are Gen Z – if they’d come to our office and we were to say to them ‘here is your paper and your writing tools’, they simply won’t stay,” says Stéphane Criel, Partner at Belgian firm Monard Law.

As Jeff Pfeifer, Chief Product Officer at LexisNexis, points out in Legal Tech Trends 2025:

“Doing nothing is no longer an option if firms want to stay ahead of the curve.”

Modern tools such as Lexis+ AI signal an innovative culture that appeals to younger professionals – a key differentiator in the current talent market.

4. New Roles and Career Paths

Emerging functions - legal prompt engineers, AI product advisors, legal data curators - are reshaping the profession.
Mathieu Balzarini, VP Product CEMEA at LexisNexis, summarises:

“Tech-savvy legal professionals are shaping how law is practised, not just how it’s delivered.”

These roles combine legal judgment with data literacy, positioning lawyers as architects of workflow innovation rather than passive users of tools.

5. Training as a Competitive Advantage

As Shreya Vajpei, Partner at Khaitan & Co., explains in the Legal Tech Trends 2025 report, the main challenge in adopting AI is not the technology itself, but the organisational change it requires - rethinking processes, people and culture.
Firms that succeed in capturing and scaling their collective knowledge will be best positioned to take advantage of AI-driven innovation.
The most forward-thinking firms are therefore building structured training programmes, investing in continuous learning, and embedding AI literacy into every career stage.
Ultimately, the lawyer of the future will be both a trusted advisor and an AI-fluent strategist - able to combine empathy, ethics, and technology to deliver smarter outcomes for clients.

¹ Source:
Harnessing Gen AI in law. Lessons from the front lines in Europe. By Ben Edwards. Global Legal Post special report in association with LexisNexis.